IA Conference @ UMBC

quoted from IA’s site: Imagining America was formally launched at a 1999 White House Conference initiated by the White House Millennium Council, the University of Michigan, and the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation. The name Imagining America reflects the theme of the White House Millennium Council, focused on renewing participation in all walks of U.S. life: “Honor the Past – Imagine the Future.” Conference participants became the basis for what would become IA’s consortium of colleges and universities, and the University of Michigan agreed to be the initial host campus, with Julie Ellison as founding director.

Achievements of IA’s early years include fostering a national network of campus-community collaborators in humanities, arts, and design; developing an analytical framework to aggregate and critically consider the range of nascent artistic and scholarly endeavors; and promoting public scholarship as an important and legitimate enterprise in higher education.